Europa Universalis V
Every campaign in Europa Universalis V is a grand strategy game played on a world map split into tens of thousands of individual locations. Each one carries its own population and buildings, and a nation is the sum of the locations it can actually hold on to.
Wars and treaties still decide which states survive, but they sit on top of an economy and a society that the player has to keep functioning for the length of the campaign.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- Everything starts with the population. Each pop wants particular goods, and when those needs go unmet the resulting anger feeds unrest and weakens the state's control over the location.
- Few strategies last the whole game. The technology tree is divided into chronological ages, and what a nation can research depends on its region and period. A plan that works in the opening decades may fall apart a century or two later.
- The playable roster runs from large powers down to nations the size of a single city. Economy, diplomacy, internal politics, warfare and colonization can each be left to automation, and a player can keep their attention on trade alone, or on the army alone.
Story and Lore
There is no invented plot or fictional world here. The material is real history, played from 1 April 1337 to 1 January 1837. Each nation begins in its historical position and is free to diverge from what actually happened.
The opening years are dominated by the Hundred Years' War between England and France, which draws in other states as allies or proxies. Larger forces arrive as situations, scripted developments with rules of their own:
- The Black Death spreads along trade routes and across borders. Its starting date and place can be randomized, or the plague can be switched off.
- The Reformation brings its own religious mechanics to the map.
- Crises such as succession disputes grow out of the player's decisions instead of a fixed schedule.
The setting is deliberately mixed. A single Iberian location can hold Catalan Catholics, Andalusi Sunnis and Sephardic Jews side by side, and assimilating any of them is possible but slow and costly.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Control and the map
Authority fades with distance. Every location has a control rating that scales tax revenue, manpower and other output, and the rating falls the farther a location lies from the capital by land or sea. This takes over the job that the core and non-core split did in Europa Universalis IV: a border region can be formally owned and still yield very little.
Economy and trade
Buildings need workers of the right social status, and those workers are pops drawn from the location's population. Goods pass through markets, and production chains link industries together: wool becomes dyed fabric, and a wool shortage appears as a warning for the cloth makers who depend on it.
- Trade centers can be given priorities by hand or handed to automation.
- Trade capacity can be reserved to guarantee specific industries their raw materials.
- Tax rates are set estate by estate, and an automatic setting aims to keep each estate content.
War and armies
Soldiers come from the same pops that run the economy. Levies can be raised only in wartime or to suppress rebels; drafted pops stop working, and casualties permanently reduce the population. Regular troops draw on a manpower pool instead and do not take workers out of production.
Army composition follows social structure. Nobles supply cavalry and elite troops, burghers supply heavy infantry, and peasants fill out the levy infantry.
Diplomacy, subjects and colonies
Subject relationships go well beyond a plain vassal link. More than a dozen subject types exist, among them vassals, fiefdoms, appanages, tributaries and members of the Hansa, and each follows its own terms for payment and annexation.
Overseas, expeditions can be sent past the edge of the known map to found colonies. Colonists migrate there, receive supplies and send goods back to the home market.
Formable nations
A country can turn into a new one when cultural, religious and territorial conditions are met. Forming replaces the current nation and generally raises its rank, for example from duchy to kingdom, and hovering over a formable in the interface highlights the areas it requires.
Ironman and mods
Ironman mode is available for runs that cannot be reloaded, and Steam Workshop support covers mods.
Characters and Factions
Characters
Each nation has a ruler who lives in the capital, with ministers and a governing body handling delegated tasks. Rulers pass traits to their heirs, and heirs can be raised in different ways.
Estates
Four estates compete for influence: nobles, clergy, burghers and commoners. Each has its own approval meter and its own privileges, and most have a building whose main effect is to raise their political weight. Privileges carry trade-offs: serfdom rights, for instance, raise noble loyalty and lower peasant happiness.
Government types
The main government types each depend on a resource of their own:
- Monarchies live on Legitimacy and have the widest range of succession laws.
- A republic runs on Republican Tradition, and the road there leads through stripping aristocratic privileges to raise the plutocracy value.
- Theocracies depend on Devotion and force-convert the subjects they create to their own religion.
- For a tribe the measure is Tribal Cohesion; as a subject, it lowers its overlord's diplomatic upkeep.
- Steppe hordes rely on Horde Unity and earn bonuses from looting and territorial war score.
Powers and societies
The roster is wide enough to give very different openings. Portugal and Castile can fund overseas expeditions early, and the Holy Roman Empire is drawn as a mosaic of small states rather than a single block. Some societies have no hard territory at all; they cover much of the Americas and can be approached through diplomacy.
Editions
Two editions are sold, both through Steam.
- Base game – the full map and every system covered above.
- Premium Edition – the base game plus four add-ons.
What the Premium Edition adds
- Fate of the Phoenix – an Immersion Pack for the Byzantine Empire that adds new options against the Ottomans and a chance to reunite the Christian church.
- Across the Pillars – a Chronicle Pack set in the Iberian Peninsula, where Castile or Morocco can be played.
- The Auld Alliance – a Chronicle Pack for France and Scotland.
- Sacred Sites – a cosmetic pack that places eight historical holy sites on the map and unlocks immediately.